A plurality of Americans still believe that a supernatural agent created human beings in their present form, but that number is coming down, while the number of people who accept that humans evolved is continuing to rise.

Overall, 21% of Americans believe that “human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process,” while 25% believe that “human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions, but God guided this process” and 37% believe that “God created human beings in their present form within the last ten thousand years”.

The number of those accepting that humans evolved without divine intervention is significantly up from 2004 numbers, when a reported only 13% of Americans accepted what science had to offer when it came to explanation of human beings and the diversity of life on Earth.

Judge John Jones, President George Bush appointee who ruled against the teaching of Intelligent Design

“Yet while belief in evolution is increasing,” stated the report, “Americans still remain divided on the teaching of creationism or intelligent design in public schools.”

Another plurality of 40% favored the teaching of Creationism in public schools with 32% opposed, and 29% of respondents were unsure.

The release of the data marked the 88th anniversary (plus one day) of the Scopes Monkey Trial, where Tennessee public school teacher John Scopes was charged with teaching evolution to his students, which was illegal under the Butler Act.

Scopes was eventually convicted and fined $100, which for 1925 was a decent amount of money for a high school teacher.

There are 8 Comments.

Wish I could see the actual raw data and methodology, but interestingly enough they require registration to get to see any of that. Perhaps Apt J could report on the methodology as well as the news-ready interpretations in the future. I feel like there are actually many stories here.

Thanks for publishing what will no doubt be a thought-provoking springboard for many conversations.

To the 21%, I say congratulations. You just outran people who didn’t even know there was a knowledge race. To the 79%, you are the weakest link. You are holding back society, and there is real harm to people occurring around the globe because people place faith over logic, reason, and facts. You don’t believe in the Tooth Fairy, so lets just take it one logical step further.

This is rather disappointing. Since all Americans are required to attend high school until the age of 18, this really speaks to how poor our education system. After 13 consecutive years of education, only 21% come out with a semblance of understanding of science, 19% apparently learned nothing, and 37% come out with completely wrong ideas about it. 13 years is a long time, and yet, we somehow still fail to teach our children the cornerstone of modern biology.

Yes, it’s getting better, and that’s nice, but Darwin has been dead for 141 years! Almost a century and a half later, and this is all we have to show for it?

Wish we could edit posts. Should say, “all Americans are required to attend school”, not “high school”, and “how poor our education system.” should be “how poor our education system is.” 19% should be 17%.

how many people actually took the poll? I mean, 21% of Americans is stretching it…I didn’t get the survey question, I didn’t even know there was a poll, and frankly, neither does anyone else I know. Probably the same for every last one of you here and plenty more who lurk, read and move on.

So if they queried 37 people and a chunk of those buy into it, then okay…but unless and until they poll 1260000000 people then their numbers are seriously skewed and any poll they announce like they found out something tragic or profound is just wasting everyone’s time.